“It’s just like taking candy from a baby,” Dick Simmons said proudly, sucking on a lollipop. “It’s my birthday, after all.” Behind him, three children stared, baskets empty of candy and eyes full of loathing.

“I think the one in the stroller was a baby,” Stinky Floss remarked. “Ew, tootsie rolls.” She threw the offending sweet on the ground where it was gobbled up by Public Enema No 2.

“It’s just a jump to the left,” Chicken Bone Her emerged from her shrubbery suddenly, causing both of them to leap away from her.

“And then a step to the right,” Wrinklepecker came at them from their other side.

They felt more than saw Crabs and Backwash creep behind them, putting their hands on their hips for them, and then the roaring in their ears grew far to great to bear.

Stinky Floss blinked gritty eyes at the morning light. “Shit, I’m late,” she huffed, throwing on clothes and dashing out the door.

“Masterbaster?” she called out immediately, watching a man in a mullet go by. He did not react, but the dude standing on the street corner peeing gave her a thumbs up. A newspaper tumbled by, and she stared at the image on the cover. “Recount,” it read, with paired images of George Bush and Al Gore.

“I missed the election?” she wondered, searching for her phone. It wasn’t there, and when she turned, neither was the door to her apartment.

“Stinky Floss, thank god!” Dick Simmons grabbed her and hugged her. “I think we’re in some sort of twisted reality. I just saw Just Doesn’t Get It, and he didn’t even recognize me!”

She looked at him doubtfully, but he continued. “And the Bay Bridge, it’s like the new one was never built, and downtown looks so different!”

“What seems to be the problem, ma’am,” a cool female voice called their attention.

Luckily, the cab Dick Simmons had hailed pulled over and he was able to drag her inside. “I know where we should go.”

***

The library was quiet except for the furious typing of Dick Simmons. They waited an age for the page to load. “The website’s still up—there’s a phone number!”

“How is that going to do us any good? They won’t recognize us!” She’d already though she’d seen Muff Daddy lurking in the back of the library, which was doubly disappointing because she also didn’t know where Public Enema had ended up, and she had held the faintest hope he’d been taking care of the pooch.

Dick Simmons had ignored her and was already at a payphone. “Okay,” he grabbed her arm. “There’s a hash tonight. Just where we started on Hashoween, lucky isn’t it!”

“But what do we do in the meantime?”

***

The Marilyn Monroe impersonator show had been worth the price, they decided together. “That one looks like Who’s Your Daddy, no?”

“And that’s Circle Jerk.”

Stinky Floss snorted. “He’s Too Fucked Up to Circle Jerk.”

The ball game afterwards had been a treat—“I’m sure we’ll get some Foul Balls in these seats,” Dick Simmons had joked, and the dance party afterward was to die for. “Watch me Twerxes Like Xerxes!” Stinky Floss had cried. “After I go Wee Wee,” Dick Simmons had replied.

When they finally pulled up at the hash in a cab, they looked at each other with something like regret.

“Today was fun,” Dick Simmons said. “If we do manage to go back…”

“Don’t be getting weepy on me now, Dick,” Stinky Floss handed him a tissue for his Tears of Semen. “Do you really want to relive the next sixteen years?”

“Cuming Mutha!” Dick Simmons had gotten distracted by the arrival of a familiar face. “You have hair!”

“No, that’d be Bitch’s Bitch.”

“What he means to say, is that we need help,” Stinky Floss explained. “See, we are from… another kennel. Far away, and we’ve been gone about… sixteen years. And we got a bit lost, and now we don’t know how to get home.”

“Ah, from the future then?” They gaped at him. “Yeah, it happened to me and On All Fours about ten years ago, we had a blast. It’s how we met.” He turned around. “Oy, Mammaries, they’re from the future! So what did you do to deserve it?”

“Do?” Stinky Floss frowned.

Dick Simmons jumped in, “I mean, the week before we were drinking with Haelowood, which led to me flashing Saigon Sally, and then Vagina Dentata showed me his dental tool, and when we were done I convinced Red Hot Vagina, Roman Showers, and Blowqueen to prove whose name fit them best.”

“Yes, but what were you doing right before?” Cuming Mutha’s eyes twinkled.

“Taking candy from babies. Why?”

***

Stinky Floss and Dick Simmons stood alone in the cemetery. “We should have known there was something weird about those kids.” She poked him with her shoe.

“Cuming Mutha said we have to find the Presidio unicorn.”

“Cuming Mutha should pull the other one,” she said. “I’m cold, let’s go. Maybe this is all just a bad dream.”

“Look!” he ignored her, pointing at the figure leaping through the darkness. Stinky Floss scrambled over the wall and tackled it. “Buck Fucka!” she yelled. The man just neighed at her nonsensically.

“I think he hit his head,” Dick Simmons wrung his hands.

“Look, there’s another one… and another!” They quickly tackled Abba and Laps in Judgment, both wearing unicorn suits.

“Now what?” she said, realizing they’d just done the same thing and both hashers were knocked out cold.

“Maybe we have to rub them?”

“They’re not rabbits’ feet…”

A whinnying broke their reverie and they looked up to see Douchicorn prancing in the moonlight.They chased after him, through the bushes and shiggy until at last they emerged to see Hand Pump dispensing beer by the Palace of Fine Arts. Me No Engrish was pulling her pooch back from Yes Sir She’s Just Fat, while Backside Banger was trying to find the Skank in Cvnt Drvnkvla.

“We’re back!” Stinky Floss said breathlessly, clutching Dick Simmons. “You were there,” she pointed to Mammaries, “And you, and you!” she hugged both of the newbie cops.

“It took forever to get anywhere,” she told Project Cumway. “There wasn’t any Uber.”